The Sûreté du Québec took part in worldwide raids targeting contraband tobacco, drug trafficking and money laundering Wednesday.
The SQ is calling the operation the largest of its kind to be conducted in North America. As of Wednesday morning, 60 people had been arrested, and 70 search warrants had been carried out.
In total, police say they have seized $13.5 million worth of tobacco, more than $3 million in U.S. cash, and more than 800 kilograms of cocaine.
Seven hundred police are involved on three continents: North America, South America, and Europe. The provincial police force is collaborating with RCMP border services and more than a dozen municipal and American police forces.
Locally, arrests are being made and searches conducted on the North Shore of Montreal, in St-Marthe-sur-le-Lac, Ste-Thérèse and in Kahnawake. Arrests are also planned in Ontario.
Sûreté du Québec, RCMP and Canada Border Services agents carry boxes from a house in Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac, north of Montreal, March 30, 2016.
“The operation is targeting a contraband tobacco network that is linked to biker gangs and Aboriginal organized crime,” SQ spokesperson Ingrid Asselin said Wednesday morning, “as well as drug trafficking and money laundering that’s taking place on an international scale.”
The Kahnawake Mohawk Peacekeepers issued a statement saying that no search warrants or arrests have taken place on the territory.
In a partial list of people targeted by arrest warrants in the operation, there are three people listed from Kahnawake. The SQ couldn’t confirm whether any arrests had been carried out yet on the reserve.
The SQ alleges the criminal organization imported 158 tobacco shipments since August 2014, totalling 2,085,600 kilograms and representing fraud of more than $530 million.
The investigation suggests that those involved were buying tobacco in the United States and importing it into Canada from borders in Lacolle, Lansdowne and Fort Erie. It was then being sold in Kahnawake and in Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario.
According to Dominic McNeely, a spokesman with Canada Border Services Agency, four shipments of more than 12,000 kilograms of tobacco were seized at the three borders within the last two years. The latest shipment was seized this month. About 100 officers from the service were involved in Wednesday’s operation.
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A map provided by police alleges that tobacco was being shipped toward Montreal and Kahnawake from North Carolina. Drugs were being shipped from Montreal to Detroit, and to the United States from South America. Money was being transferred between locations in Montreal and the United States, and ultimately shipped toward South America and Europe, the map shows.
The alleged head of the ring, Sylvain Ethier from Ste-Thérèse, faces possible fraud charges by the Canadian, Quebec and Ontario governments. Police allege 20 people were working directly under him, transporting the tobacco and transferring the money.
The investigation, called Operation Mygale, started in the fall of 2014.
